Nurses and other caregivers at hospitals, assisted living facilities, and other locations often care for patients with limited or no mobility, many of whom are critically ill or injured and/or are bedridden. These patients are dependent upon nurses/caregivers to move, and are at risk of forming pressure ulcers (bed sores) due to their inability to move. Pressure ulcers develop due to pressure on a patient's skin for prolonged periods of time, particularly over areas where bone or cartilage protrudes close to the surface of the skin because such pressure reduces blood flow to the area eventually resulting in tissue death. The risk of forming a pressure ulcer is exacerbated by skin surface damage caused by frictional forces and shearing forces resulting from the patient's skin rubbing or pulling against a surface and excessive heat and moisture, which causes the skin to be more fragile and therefore more susceptible to damage.
One area in which pressure ulcers frequently form in an immobile patient lying on his/her back is over the sacral bone (the “sacrum”), because the sacrum and supporting mattress surface exert constant and opposing pressure on the skin, resulting in the aforementioned reduction in blood flow. Furthermore, skin in the sacral region is often more susceptible to damage due to shear and friction resulting from the patient being pushed or pulled over the surface of the mattress to reposition him/her, or from sliding down over the surface of the bed when positioned with his/her upper body in an inclined position for pulmonary reasons.
Existing devices and methods often do not adequately protect against pressure ulcers in bedridden patients, particularly pressure ulcers in the sacral region. One effective way to combat sacral pressure ulcers is frequent turning of the patient, so that the patient is alternately resting on one side or the other thus avoiding prolonged pressure in the sacral region. A protocol is often used for scheduled turning of a bedridden patient and dictates that a patient should be turned Q2, or every two hours, either from resting at a 30° angle on one side to a 30° angle on the other side, or from 30° on one side to 0°/supine (lying on his/her back) to 30° on the other side. However, there are several barriers to compliance with this type of protocol, resulting in patients not being turned as often as necessary, or positioning properly at a side-lying angle, to prevent pressure ulcers. First, turning patients is difficult and time consuming, typically requiring two or more caregivers. Second, pillows are often stuffed partially under the patient to support the patient's body in resting on his or her left or right side; however, pillows are non-uniform and can pose difficulties in achieving consistent turning angles, as well as occasionally slipping out from underneath the patient. Third, patients who are positioned in an inclined position on the bed often slide downward toward the foot of the bed over time, which can cause them to slip off of any structures that may be supporting them. Additionally, this requires the nurse/caregiver to frequently “boost” the patient back up to the head of the bed, which, like turning, can be difficult and time-consuming, and once again may result in shearing/friction of the patient's skin. Further, many patient positioning devices cannot be left under a patient for long periods of time, because they do not have sufficient breathability and/or compatibility with certain bed functions such as low-air loss (LAL) technology and can be easily stained when soiled.
Moreover, caregivers often need to move patients to or from a bed surface for transport, treatment, or examination of the patient. Patients who are unconscious, disabled, or otherwise unable to move under their own power often require the assistance of multiple caregivers to accomplish this transfer. The patient transfer process has traditionally relied upon one or more of several methods, including the use of folded bedsheets (“drawsheets”) or rigid transfer boards in concert with the exertion of strong pushing or pulling forces by the caregivers to accomplish the move. The process may be complicated by the size of the patient, the patient's level of disability, and/or the patient's state of consciousness.
In addition to being difficult and time-consuming, turning, positioning, transferring and/or boosting patients, types of “patient handling” activities, can result in injury to healthcare workers who push, pull, or lift the patient's body weight. For healthcare workers, the most prevalent cause of injuries resulting in days away from work is overexertion or bodily reaction, which includes motions such as lifting, bending, or reaching and is often related to patient handling. These injuries can be sudden and traumatic, but are more often cumulative in nature, resulting in gradually increasing symptoms and disability in the healthcare worker.
In recognition of the risk and frequency of healthcare worker injuries associated with patient handling, safe patient handling procedures and/or protocols are often implemented in the healthcare setting. These protocols stress that methods for moving patients should incorporate a form of assistive device to reduce the effort required to handle the patient, thus minimizing the potential for injury to healthcare workers. Such assistance may be accomplished, for example, with the use of low-friction sheets or air assisted patient transfer devices that utilize forced air to reduce the physical exertion needed from healthcare workers to accomplish the task of moving a patient.
The present disclosure seeks to overcome certain of these limitations and other drawbacks of existing devices, systems, and methods, and to provide new features not heretofore available.